The Fourth Stokes Summer School

Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland
18th - 22nd June 2004

Modern Applications of Fluorescence and Spectroscopy

This is the fourth in a series of conferences organised by Alastair Wood (Dublin City University) and Sir Michael Berry (Bristol) to honour the life and work of Sir George Gabriel Stokes at his birthplace "within the sound of the Atlantic breakers". Lectures will again be held in the historic setting of the former Parochial School, in the single room where Stokes is thought to have received his primary education. Given the capacity of this scenic and historic venue, attendance is restricted to 50.

In addition to his mathematical contributions, Stokes carried out detailed experiments on the interaction of light with matter, in the course of which he introduced the word fluorescence, and pointed out that the light emitted after excitation is always of a longer wavelength than the exciting light (the Stokes Shift). The forthcoming meeting will therefore be a Summer School on the Modern Applications of Fluorescence and Spectroscopy. The aim is to not only celebrate historical aspects related to Stokes's seminal contributions, but to emphasize the current living science of fluorescence and spectroscopy.

The guiding principles of the Stokes Summer Schools are:

	A good balance of speakers both between theory and application and between Stokes's work and new developments;
	A minimum of formality - there are no name tags, abstracts or published proceedings;
	Afternoons free of formal lectures to allow for research interactions between participants or varied optional excursions to sites of scenic or archaeological interest;
	Good social life and interaction with local population - we have a record of return bookings.